baseball stoopid stats (2016 edition) #2: wins, losses and games over 500.

As promised, here is another edition of stoopid stats for Major League Baseball. It has been noted to me that I really should provide access to the underlying spreadsheet. I don't deny that. And I offer my apologies to anyone who wants to look at it and can't. At some point I'll be up to doing such things.


Sometime around 30 years ago I started thinking about how cool it would be to see a massive graph

Cumulative won-loss totals for every major league franchise

showing every major league team's cumulative games above .500 (i.e., wins minus losses), as that stat progressed from year to year. It was impractical to undertake such a project without using a spreadsheet, so I didn't really pursue it until Lotus 123 (or am I dating myself) became one of my everyday tools. Now I have a spreadsheet tracking this, which I update every year.

The graph (as it exists as of 2016) is above. Another acknowledgement: It would be great to have a legend. But it wouldn't be that great. There have been 113 franchises (including defunct ones), so a full legend would be largely useless. But, for what it's worth, that red line at the top is the Yankees, who have (by far) the best record.

Of course, that doesn't mean that the Yankees have the most wins. They are actually eighth by that measure. Of course, fifteen franchises are older than they are. The eight non-expansion NL teams all date to the second half of the 1800s. The other seven non-expansion AL teams date back to 1901. The Yankees date back to 1903 -- the year they entered the league, replacing the AL Baltimore Orioles. Ranking the teams by win totals give us the table at right. For these purposes I am only including the current 30 teams. If you really want to see this table, including all 83 defunct franchises, let me know. But among defunct franchises, the one with the most wins was also the Baltimore Orioles who played in the AA from 1882-1891 and the NL from 1892-1899, compiling a record of 1,133 and 1,049. And they had fewer wins than the Rays who are behind the rest of the Major League pack.

Of interest (at least to me), the Yankees entered the 2016 season with exactly 10,000 wins. I actually hadn't noticed until after this year. That's because, until now I've been treating the 1901-1902 Orioles and the current Yankees as the same franchise. That was my understanding, based on the sources available when I started this project a couple decades ago. But in recent years the baseball historians reexamined the history and concluded that the replacement of the Orioles with the Highlanders (who would eventually come to be called the Yankees) really involved the dissolution of one franchise and creation of a new one. I don't know the exact criteria they used, or exactly how they arrived at that conclusion. I imagine it's as much art as science. But I'm going to accept their judgement. Problem is, that involves modifying my files.

Also, in 2016 the Dogers passed the Braves to become the third winningest franchise.

someone is serious about gilligan's island

Every so often, I've been in conversations that turn to Gilligan's Island, and someone talks about some aspect of the show that doesn't make sense:

• How come they all had so much clothing?
• If the Professor can build all that neat stuff out of what's on the island, how come he can't fix the boat?
• How does the Professor happen to know everything about everything?

Invariably, these conversations end with a chuckle as someone notes that it's Gilligan's frickin' Island, and  there's no point in looking for sense. But this guy takes his GI inconsistencies seriously.

cinema history class: city of the living dead

I am not a Lucio Fulci fan. I guess that's my takeaway from Thursday's film class at Keith's. Before the class, I'd seen one of his movies. To the best of my knowledge. That one movie was The House by the Cemetery, which I saw this past August as part of the all-night horror film festival at the Cinema Arts Center. I wrote about that movie as part of my post here. The relevant paragraph?

A family moves to New England and finds themselves haunted by the house's former owner. The story is well-constructed and interesting, and this is done very well. But it relies on a lot of blood and guts and gross-out visuals as well as jump scares, and I'm not into that. If you are, then you may find this to be a really good movie.

 Except for the first sentence, which described the plot, that paragraph could apply to City of the Living Dead, the Fulci film that Keith showed us.

The camerawork was very good, and the music was compelling. But, dang, how many times can I watch someone get his or her scalp pulled off? And the other grossities? A woman literally pukes her guts out. A guy gets his face drilled on a lathe. And lots of other stuff I'm not into.

This was an interesting film for the visuals. And I'm still trying to figure out the whole gimmick of zombies that can appear and disappear at will Maybe "demons" is a better word than "zombies." And, in a sense I can kind of see this as part of the transition of the horror film industry into the realm of slasher movies.

Fulci was talented. But not my cup of tea.

ethan at the keys

Ethan is taking piano lessons again. I won't make the same mistake I made the last time. That is, I won't force him to practice.

That may sound a bit odd. And it does, in some ways, it goes against a my instinct. But I've learned my lesson. Some years ago, Ethan took piano lessons. He had some innate talent. And it bothered me that he wasn't practicing. When I was growing up, the girls two houses down took piano, and had a strict practice regimen. And all my other experience is that, when kids take lessons on an instrument, they have to practice. A lot. So I insisted that he practice. If I was paying all this money for lessons, he should practice so the money isn't wasted. Well, he liked the lessons, but didn't want to practice. So he quit.

Now, years later, we've talked about it a few times. And I agreed not to try to force him to practice. I'd love it if he does, but I don;t want to force him and risk killing whatever interest he has. Will that mean it'll take longer for him to learn? Probably. But him learning slowly is better than him not learning.

back in the saddle: tricycle race 2016.

The short answer? We didn't win.

This was my fourth year running a tricycle racing team at work. I started in 2012, but took 2015 off. In those four years, my team, never got past the qualifying round. But this year we had the best shirts. And that's really all I care about.

Since this is the first time I'm writing a blogpost about the race, I'll include a year-by-year recap of my involvement.

2012 -- Getting Started

Before  2012 I had never even thought of getting involved in the tricycle race. But I got a call from my boss's boss. He told me that it would be a good thing if the actuarial department was represented in the race. That, of course, meant that his boss (the CFO) had told him that it would be good if there was an actuarial team.

There followed a frantic search for actuaries willing to compete. The task was made harder by the fact that the actuarial students were putting a team together, so I couldn't get any of them. But a little begging goes a long way. For a team name, I considered a few possibilities (three of which were based around "the force of mortality," which is a technical term in the actuarial field): "The Force of Mortality" "The Farce of Mortality" "Vim Mortalitatis" "A Bunch of Actuaries." For uniforms, I picked a font -- Brush Script MT -- that looked like what I think of as the proper script for baseball uniform fronts. Think of the LA Dodgers. I combined that with a clip art drawing of the grim reaper with a briefcase. I also wanted the uniforms to have the players' names and numbers on the back. But I wanted the numbers to be represented in ways other than simple Arabic numerals. One uniform had, as its number, the definite integral from 0 to 2 of xdx. Someone else had 4 choose 2. My uniform number (the back of my uniform is pictured here) was negative 1. My favorite, which I made for an admin whom I liked, was the limit (as x approaches zero) of sin(1/x).

I made the shirts using iron-ons and a press. I liked the design, but it was a lot of work, and the resulting shirts generally don't last long. Well, the shirts do. But the design starts to come off relatively soon, and the iron-on patch yellows. I also pulled a stupid. I neglected to realize that, to do iron-ons, I'd have to print everything reversed. I only realized this after I'd made a bunch of shirts. These backward logo shirts are now collector's items and will only go up in value when my team makes it to the majors. Buy yours now for the low price of $200 each.

The actuarial students put together a team. I forget what their name was. But their uniform consisted of a black shirt with a picture of the man who was running the student program. It gave the appearance that he had died and that they were memorializing him. We didn't win. Didn't even get past the qualifying round. But I didn't care.

2013 -- Back for more

By the time I was putting together a team for 2013, I knew that all I really cared about was the uniforms. This time out, I asked Desmond Devlin to draw a picture for the uniforms. I was envisioning the grim reaper on a tricycle, and I couldn't find one on the intertubes. OK, I found a couple but they were grim, and I wanted something that looked playful. Desmond, for the uninitiated, is a friend of mine, and also one of Mad Magazine's most prolific writers. But he doesn't consider himself an artist, even though he is very talented in that regard.

I asked Des how much he'd charge for a drawing, and he couldn't decide on a price. So we agreed that I would drive him and his wife to Ikea in Brooklyn so they could by furniture, then drive them (and their furniture) home. Des' drawing was inspired. I colorized it (and added a drop of blood on the end of the scythe)
and used it for the shirts. The grim reaper's face was supposed to be me, but I don't see the resemblance. As an aside, I should explain that Des has an uncanny knack for drawing my face. We've nicknamed his drawings "Moish-heads." But this Moish didn't head. Whatever. The picture was great, and I used the same font, though I slightly modified the writing so that "The Force of" was at a different angle than "Mortality." I went with the same basic idea for uniform numbers. To the best of my knowledge, it is not known whether my uniform number is infinity or some finite number (or, if the latter, what finite number it is). If I had to guess, I'd go with infinity. And, as in 2012, I made the shirts at home with iron-ons.

I'm pretty sure the actuarial students had a team, but I don't remember what it was called.

Again, we didn't get out of the qualifying round.

2014 -- More actuarial competition

The racing season in 2014 was marked by competition for racers. One of the other actuaries decided that the actuarial team should be called "Wheels of Fortune." I had grown to really like my team name. And the actuarial students didn't want to use his idea (I forget what they used). So he put together his own team.

One of the actuarial students offered to design uniforms for me, and I took her up on it, and used the same iron-on method for the uniforms. But I'd been growing weary of putting names and uniform numbers on the backs of the uniforms. The iron-ons are problematic enough. Doing iron-ons on both sides of the shirts added extra challenges that I just didn't want to keep dealing with.

I think there was an actuarial team in the Charlotte office that entered the Charlotte race. None of the actuarial teams won, despite my efforts at trike modification. We had a raised steering wheel and a wooden seat that was set higher and farther back than the standard seat. We attached sandpaper to the drive wheel to get better traction. That, by the way, is now against the rules. Fat lot of good it did us.

2015 -- The year that wasn't
In 2015, circumstances conspired to keep me out of the race. After 2014 I had decided that I was done dealing with iron-ons. For 2015 I would go with silk-screened shirts. Professionally made. But the race wasn't as well publicized, and by the time I found out about it, it was too late to go the professional route. I could have still gotten a team together and gone back to the iron-ons, but my heart wasn't in it, and I sat things out. I don;t think there was an actuarial student team either. The actuaries in Charlotte had a team.

2016 -- Back in the saddle
This year I was back. I recycled the Devlin design from 2013, but went with silk-screen. If anyone needs to get silk-screened shirts made, I recommend you check out customink.com. They were helpful and courteous. A pleasure to work with. I did change the design a little in order to reduce (by one) the number of colors.

It cost more than using iron-ons at home, but it was a lot less work, and these were the best uniforms I had ever gotten.

The actuarial students put together a team, called The UnderRiders. I liked our uniforms better. The Charlotte actuaries named their team "The Force of Mortality (with Improvement)." Their shirts were downright boring. By the way, both of these other actuarial teams got their shirts from customink.com as well. I believe they were all satisfied.

Anyway, I'm not sure whether to be annoyed or flattered about the Charlottans' name being so similar to mine. I preferred one of their other ideas -- "S(x) of the Fittest." S(x) is the survival function. But I suppose people would see that name and figure it's some kind of sex joke.

Given the tight time constraints -- my fault; I confused the calendar -- and the fact that it was a different tricycle model this year, I didn't try any mods. There was a little bit of controversy. "Sharknado" (instead of uniforms, they wore shark costumes) apparently won their qualifying heat, but were disqualified for a false start. This was also the first year that I actually rode. As team owner, I never rode before. But one of my riders had to drop out. He helped by finding a replacement, but she didn't want to ride. She was willing, but not eager. So I ended up riding. Oh, the thrill! Thank God it's over. Until next year.

tombs of the blind dead

Sometimes my initial reaction to a movie we see in Keith's class can be a bad predictor of how I'll feel about it a few days, weeks or months later. For example, I laughed off I Drink Your Blood as silly drive-in faire, but it stayed in my mind, and I couldn't help but think about it. And now it remains as one of my favorites from the class.

So now I'm trying to figure out what it means that, a couple days after seeing Tombs of the Blind Dead, I haven;t really thought about it much.

I liked TotBD when we saw it. I think I gave it an 8. It was an original monster story, which gives it points. And the scenes of the blind dead, when they were on horseback, were really well done. They made the monsters seem ethereal and haunting. I also loved the ambiguous ending. Joe didn't like the ending for the prcisely the same reasons that I liked it. But I suppose  that's why Baskin Robbins has 31 flavors. The scenes with the monsters were suspenseful, without relying on jump scares -- I don't like jump scares. So there was a lot to like.

But there was also stuff to criticize. There were some sequences (between the action) that went on way too long. The whole scene when Virginia finds the old abbey is a good example. "Hello?" "Is there anyone here?" "Hello?" I kept wanting to scream at the screen "THERE'S NO ONE THERE YOU FRICKIN' MORON! GET A GODDAMN CLUE!"  Of course, Joe thought that extended scene was good in that it built tension. Maybe BR needs 32 flavors.

We, the class, were also trying to figure out the point behind the lesbian scene near the beginning -- though we could theorize that it tied into the rape scene late in the movie. But it really wasn't necessary. Keith had pointed out that de Ossorio seemed to work a lesbian scene and a rape scene into each of his movies. So maybe it's just that he has issues with women. That would also explain the torture scene where a woman (a virgin, natch!) gets tortured to death by the Templar Knights. But that's between him and his shrink. I guess.

As an added bonus, Keith told us about an attempt to use this film to capitalize on the Planet of the Apes movies. At some point, someone (I don't recall who) created a new edit of this. All the Templar Knight stuff was removed, some exposition was added to the beginning telling of how, centuries ago, humans and apes battled for supremacy. Humans won, but now the apes are coming back from the grave to take revenge. It was released with those changes and a new name: Revenge of Planet Ape. Catchy, no?

I'm still not sure where I'll land on this. But I do think it would have made a great episode of MST3K.

EDIT: I forgot to mention one weird thing about TotBD. MOst of the movie was dubbed into English. But there were a few sequences that weren't dubbed. In those, the audio was in Spanish, and there were English subtitles. My understanding is that those scenes were being left out of the American version, so there was no need to dub into English. Then, some years later when there was a new American version they wanted to add those scenes back in. It did make for an odd effect. Oh, and for some reason there were a couple sequences that were dubbed into English and had English subtitles. And the dubbing didn't match the subtitles. Now that I think of it, that would make for an interesting cinematic experiment. Make a movie. In English, that's fine. Then come up with completely different dialogue that tells a different story but makes sense with the images on the screen. Then add that dialogue as subtitles.

a happy birthday for sharon

For Sharon's birthday I learned that parents shouldn't play paintball against their kids. I'd played paintball with Ethan and Sharon before, but we were always on the same team, so I was never in a position of having to shoot either of them for the game. But this time it was different.

For her birthday, Sharon wanted to play paintball. The nearest proper outdoor paintball course is 65 miles away, at the East end of Long Island. So, instead of going there, we agreed on an indoor course in Long Island City. And off we went -- Sharon, her friend Nolan, Asher and me. But this being a schoolday, the place wasn't exactly packed. There was, as I saw, one other family. Orthodox Jews, which makes sense, since this was Chol Hamo'ed Sukkot. But they were there for laser tag instead of paintball. So it was literally the four of us. Asher and me against Sharon and Nolan made sense.

The way this place does things there are three rounds of five contests each. The closed course was kind of nebbishy, but it fit the bill. I found myself facing a few challenges. For starters, Asher isn;t really up for things like spreading out. When a game would start I'd run off to the right and take cover, figuring he was off to the left. Then I'd look over and see him right next to me. Frustration. But, hey, I told myself, he's still looking to me to protect him, and he wants to be with me. So I'm getting a present, even though it's Sharon's birthday. And, you know, it's just us having fun. Who cares if he doesn't get strategy, as long as he understands (and follows) the safety rules. Chief among those is: keep your helmet/mask on. And he was great at that. So no problem.

The bigger frustration came with the guns. They kept not firing. I'd have a perfect opportunity for a shot, pull the trigger and...nothing. Or, sometimes a bullet (this place uses rubber bullets instead of paint pellets. Presumably it saves cleanup costs, and they're reusable) would kind of dribble out. It was almost comical, but this was serious. In all fairness, it's not as if the guns never fired; they were just unreliable. And this was a problem that afflicted all four of us. But the problem I had that was uniquely mine was that it was difficult pointing a gun at Sharon and firing. Even though it was a toy gun and a game. I managed, but it was difficult.

Of course, the proudest moments were when Sharon shot me. One particular moment was beautiful. There's a rule that you can't shoot an opponent at a range of closer than ten feet. Safety and all.  But within ten feet you can run up to your opponent and yell "SURRENDER!" in order to get him or her out of the game. So at one point Nolan and I were on opposite sides of an obstacle. Maybe eight feet away from each other. So I ran around the corner screaming "SURRENDER!" So he was out. But then, out of the corner of my eye I spotted Sharon. I turned and raised my gun to fire, but before I got a shot off she nailed me right in the chest. At the base of my throat. Great shot! And I was really glad I had paid for the padded vest.

I don't remember exactly how many games were won by which side, but I do know that Sharon and Nolan won the majority. Probably ten or more of the 15 games.

Then, off to dinner. We were planning to go to Sharon's favorite restaurant -- a Thai place in Mineola. She loves the massaman curry. But despite the fact that the listings on the internet indicated that they were open, they were closed. We had come full circle. A week and a half earlier, we were going out for Asher's birthday. We tried his favorite, which is Kyochon, a Korean fried chicken place in Flushing. But they were closed, despite the listing saying they were open. Instead, we ended up at the Thai place. Now the Thai place was closed, so we ended up with a pan-Asian Curry restaurant in Hicksville. Blair had heard good things about it. And the good things were generally true, though I have to thank Ethan for advising me that the Indian dishes would be better than the Thai.

And finally, the important part: cake. We had a black and white mousse cake and a seven layer cake. I'm partial to the seven layer. It's comfort food. And that's as positive a note as any to close this on.

my thoughts about the warriors

For me, the highlight of the Fort Hamilton Comic Con was a screening of the 1979 cult classic, The Warriors. Maybe it's my experience taking Keith's cinema history class (and blogging about each session), but I feel I must comment.

Before you go on, as with any of my discussions of movies, there is a risk of spoilers. For those unfamiliar, here's the premise: A gang leader, Cyrus, has invited representatives of 100 gangs to a huge meeting in the Bronx. There, he gets shot and the shooter manages to implicate The Warriors. Now they have to make their way back to their home turf in Coney Island while the police and every gang in the city are gunning for them. I'd seen most of this movie in pieces over the years, but I'd never seen the whole thing.

In a few ways, The Warriors was the perfect film for this menu. It is a comic book of a movie. Many of the gangs have themes -- some quite ridiculous. For example, The Baseball Furies dress in baseball uniforms (and face paint) and use baseball bats as weapons. Unless I misunderstood, there was a gang of mimes. The Grammercy Riffs seemed almost paramilitary in their approach. This comic book feel was accentuated by transitions using comic book-like panels and written narration. Of course, I don't know if the film was chosen for these reasons or if it was simply that they were able to get one of the stars to come for a Q&A.

The story itself isn't really all that great, or even compelling. For the most part it's pretty straightforward. They fight. They run. They get separated. They fight. They run. They reconnect. Yadda yadda yadda. And yet I enjoyed watching it. I guess I really wanted to know how they managed to get back to Coney Island. Of course, I also enjoyed the fact that the subway system is a constant companion. Around the time of this film I was a huge New York subway system buff, and it was fun to see the vintage subway cars. And -- special treat -- they kept referring to the Miassimo Vignelli schematic subway maps. Those were phased out in 1978, and by the time the movie came out they had been replaced with the John Tauranac design (a variation of which is still used today). Of course, the filming was done in 1978, and it was a few years before the maps had been replaced on all the trains.

The movie presents what seems like a depressing view of New York by today's standards. But I remember the New York of the late 1970s -- when Union Square Park was a cesspit of druggies, drunks and used condoms. So the New York portrayed in the movie wasn't really that far off. If you discount the wacky gangs. But the opening scene indicates that the movie takes place "sometime in the future," which I guess makes it a dystopia of sorts. I kept thinking of Escape from New York, but honestly I don't know how similar this was to that, since I never saw Escape.

The OCD side of me did get hung up on a couple things. Notably the geography was all off. Also, the narration at the beginning started with "Over two milleniums ago" which had me screaming in my head "That's 'millenia'!" But a reasonable person can put aside such iobjections and just watch the damn movie.

I actually loved the ending. At least, I did after I had time to think about it. I spent most of the movie trying to figure out why Luther shot Cyrus. Was he working for the police (who understandably didn't want a 100,000-strong supergang)? Did he think he could do better running things? Revenge? I figured we'd find out at the end. But I was initially disappointed by Luther's explanation: "No reason. I just like doing things like that." And it's totally believable because of David Patrick Kelly's psychotic demeanor. His was the best performance in the movie, and it's only a shame that his role was so small. At any rate, while I was initially disappointed, I came around to really appreciating that revelation. In a city overrun with violent gangs, where so much of the infrastructure appeared dismal and bleak, the nihilistic explanation made perfect sense. And it was better than any rational explanation would have been.

Now, having said that the city is overrun by violent gangs, I should note that that's somewhat misleading. In some ways a lot of the violence is sanitized. Deadly force is less common than I would expect, and gang members are often shown as being satisfied to merely beat up their opponents and walk away. This is a departure from the book which is much more violent. In a sense that's necessary. It's enough of a challenge to get an audience to sympathize with a violent street gang. If the Warriors had been portrayed in the movie the way the Dominators (their analog in the book) are, it would be pretty much impossible. So they don't actually kill. And they don't commit gang rape. These Warriors are the cuddly version of the Dominators.

The screening was followed by a Q&A with David Harris, who had played Cochise. I stayed for a little bit of it, but soon found that I wasn't really interested in hearing what he had to say. Not that I think he cared. There was enough of a crowd to make him feel appreciated. Ironically, more people than the six or so of us who had watched the movie.

my first comic con

This past Sunday was a first for me: My first trip to a comic book convention. It shouldn't really surprise, since I've never been much of a comic book guy. I liked Archie and Richie Rich comics when I was a kid, but I was never much for superheroes.

But this was a Stack-Up event. The first ever Fort Hamilton ComicCon seemed like a perfect event to attend for Stack-Up. Stack-Up is based around video games instead of comic books, but there is lots of crossover from one aspect of geek culture to another. And this one, located in historic Fort Hamilton, was catering largely to a military crowd. Anyway, we (mostly Ethan and Blair) spread the word, handing out Stack-Up stickers and info cards, and tweeting pictures of vendors, staff and attendees holding up the cards,

Asher and the kids' friend, Nolan, took a class in light saber fighting, and Blair and the kids sat in on a solve-the-mystery game.

For me, the highlight was a screening of the 1979 cult classic, The Warriors, which was followed by a Q&A with David Harris, who played Cochise. Earlier, they had a screening of The Toxic Avenger and a Q&A with Dan Snow who played Cigar Face. I skipped that -- I saw TA years ago in grad school and couldn't stand it then.

We had fun at this comic con, though there was definitely room for improvement. The screening tent was too bright, so the screen was washed out. And, for what seemed like the longest time, we sat and watched the DVD's splash screen since no one thought to start the show. The various panel discussions were poorly attended and not well run.

Oh well, there's always next year...

black sabbath kicks off a new cinema history class session

In cinema history class this past week, we started the new session with Mario Bava's Black Sabbath. This was a 1963 API French/Italian anthology of three short stories. Though this is an iconic film, it was in some ways a letdown after the deeply disturbing Andy Warhol's Dracula that we saw in the prior week.

The film starts off strong with a revenge/ghost story called "A Drop of Water." This was, by far, the best of the three films. Unfortunately, it went down from there. "The Telephone," which was more of a giallo was longer and less good. The final installment, "The Wurdalak," is a vampire story, and the only one to include Boris Karloff (though Karloff also served as an MC of sorts). "Wurdalak" was interesting, but it just went on too long.

In some ways I think this movie would have worked better if the order were different. "A Drop of Water" was short and snappy, and would have served better as the final installment. Joe disagreed with that assessment; since Karloff is in "Wurdalak," he feels that had to come last. I find that interesting given that the European release had "Drop" in the final slot.

And, yes, the heavy metal band took their name from this movie. I just wish I knew what the name has to do with the movie.

a few more thoughts about andy warhol's dracula

This is a rape scene -- Morrissey obliterated the line
between sex and violence

Earlier this week a wrote a post about Andy Warhol's Dracula, the film we saw in Keith's cinema history class last Thursday.

There are a few points I should have made about the movie and its sensuality.

Part of what made the movie so entrancing and so exhausting was the way the sensuality built into the Dracula character. When he's drinking blood it's portrayed as almost a sexual act. In one scene he is on top of one of the Di Fiore daughters, his fangs in her neck, and he's thrusting his body up and down as if he were having sex with her. When he comes up for air after drinking a victim's blood, there are crimson streams pouring from his mouth, and he looks as if he had just had an orgasm. Both of these -- and other -- images that combine violence with sexuality are deeply disturbing, and were part of the reason I felt exhausted.

In one scene where Dracula, having drunk the blood of a woman who was not a virgin (she lied to him), he retches into a bathtub. And a bidet. And the floor. It's horrifying and yet so sensual. I know that sounds like a contradiction, but it's true.

And then there are the scenes, so beautifully shot and yet so vulgar -- where Dracula is sucking blood out of a loaf of bread (don't ask), and when he's on the floor, desperately trying to get to the blood spilled by the youngest di Fiore sister as she lost her virginity. He looks like a drug addict desperate for a fix. And this is a perfect example of Paul Morrissey (who disdained hippie culture) glamorizing the vulgar subculture. Of course, the duality is even stronger when one considers that the sister lost her virginity in a rape which is portrayed more as seduction, in which she says "No" repeatedly, only to slowly relax and eventually give in and relax. If you've seen Rocky Horror and recall Frank's seduction of Janet, imagine a more stylized and sensualized variation of that.

Over and over, this movie presented visual oxymorons. The boundaries between sex and violence are erased, and I found that draining. And yet, that made this stand out as one of the most interesting classes we have had.

cinema history class: exhausted by a dracula movie

It's been a few years now that Ethan and I have been in Keith's cinema history class. In that time, we've seen many movies -- some good and some...not so good. Some -- not all, but some -- of the movies can tend to blend together. But there have been a few that stand out as truly memorable.

This past Thursday's movie, Andy Warhol's Dracula, was part of the second category. By the time the film ended, I was breathless. Exhausted. This ain't your father's Dracula. It was a gothic horror film. There were comedic elements, which was Keith's rationale for including the movie in his session on horror comedies. And a lot of the movie played like a soft-core porn flick. So I can't really say exactly why I found the movie so exhausting. So compelling.

Perhaps it was the atmosphere. The cinematography is lush and vivid, and the direction captures the the moods beautifully. The movie begins with a scene of Dracula elaborately making himself up to look alive. As an aside, I note that this is a new element in the Dracula canon -- the idea that the count, being dead has to use makeup and hair dye to make himself look alive. From there, there's some exposition, and the count is off to Italy in search of virgin victims. There are moments that are fascinating. There are moments that are revolting. There are moments that are frightful. And it all adds up to a thrilling hour and a half.

There are some puzzling elements to the movie. Chief among them are the accents. They contribute greatly to the atmosphere, but they're inconsistent. While Dracula is courting the di Fiore daughters (who, surprise surprise, aren't the virginal angels he's thirsting for), the father speaks with an Italian accent. The mother sounds British. At least one of the daughters sounds French. And the farmhand sounds a Jersey Boy.

And this is as good a time as any to talk about that farmhand. Played by Joe Dallesandro,  he sounds completely out of place. At least all the other accents are European. But there's no effort to rein in Dallesandro's speech. Keith tells us that this was probably a conscious choice on the part of director, Paul Morrissey, for humorous effect. I have to wonder if Dallesandro was in on the joke. It's hard to say for sure. It's hard to imagine that he was oblivious, but he's such a poor actor that such obliviousness is quite possible. While the rest of the acting is quite good (and sometimes excellent), Dallesandro turns his role as the farmhand into a caricature of the pron industry.

I suppose he's well-suited for that role. His body is quite attractive -- especially in the long loving camera shots of his butt during the sex scenes, and he plays it up. Which makes sense given his history. Keith points out that he was the inspiration for a verse in a Lou Reed's classic:

Little Joe never once gave it away
Everybody had to pay and pay
A hustle here and a hustle there
New York City's the place where
They said "Hey babe, take a walk on the wild side."
I said "Hey Joe, take a walk on the wild side."

With a little research I also found out that the crotch on the cover of the Rolling Stones' Sticky Fingers cover. So, Joe knew how to work it.

Finally, to close with a bit of attention to the end of the movie. The climactic scene is horrifying in its violence, and yet it's funny as well. And it exhausted me.

This is a movie that I never would have seen if not for Keith's class. In fact, I might not have heard of it. But I'm truly glad to have seen it, and that's the best of the class.

baseball stoopid stats roundup (2016 edition) #1

Baseball fans know that Barry Bonds holds the record for most home runs in a season (73) and that he holds the record for most home runs in a career (762). But who holds the record for most home runs in a span of 8 consecutive years? Or twelve?

Some years ago I got interested in the question(s) of who holds the records for most home runs in an n-year period (for positive integers n). As a result, it's something that I track every year, updating the tables as necessary after the regular season is over. As it turns out, the list didn't change this year -- it hasn't changed since 2007, which was Barry Bonds' last season. I attribute that fact to the end of the steroid era.

Anyway, the list (as shown in the accompanying chart) contains four players. What's interesting is that three of those players are from the steroid era. The other is Babe Ruth. When Ruth retired, he held the record for every span. In fact, as of 1921 he held the record for every span. That lasted until 1961, when Roger Maris hit 61 home runs to take the 1-year span. Maris, by the way, would stay on the list until 1998, when Mark McGwire eclipsed him with 70. Anyway, after 1961, the list stayed the same until 1973, when Hank Aaron set the record for home runs in a 20-year span (713). The next year, Aaron would grab the records for all spans longer than 20 years. And things were atble after that until 1998 when McGwire entered the list. THere ensued a ten-year span in which Sammy Sosa and Bonds would enter the list. But since 2007, things have stayed the same, which is what we have now.

One other note: I realize (since it was pointed out to me) that proper form would have me link to the file in which I did this analysis. Auditability and all that folderol. Maybe when I get better at using services like DropBox I'll start doing that.

the logic of baseball's postseason

Baseball's regular season is over, which means that it's time for me to look at the StoopidStats that I'm into. I will likely be posting about the 2016 season a few times over the next few days or weeks.

For this first post, I'd like to say that I have finally achieved some level of comfort with the concept of interdivisional play, interleague play and the wild card. These are all concepts that I have, for years, found to be intellectually displeasing.

Let me elaborate.

Let's start with the world series. The basic idea behind the world series was that there were two leagues, each with a champion. Since there was no interaction between the leagues, they instituted a championship series to determine bragging rights. That worked through 1969, when the leagues were split into divisions. Now, before the world series, they had a playoff within each league to determine the league champion. That would have made sense, except that they also had interdivisional play, which destroyed the conceit that you need the playoff to determine a league champion. In the intervening years, the structure has been repeatedly changed -- almost always in ways that reduce what I will call the "logical purity of the postseason structure." The unbalanced schedule. Interleague play. Wild cards.

Wild cards are the worst. It never made sense to me that you can be the major league champion without even winning your division. I took it as a sign in 1994 when, the year the wild card was instituted, the postseason was cancelled for the first time in 90 years. At least now there are two wild cards who have to play an extra one-game playoff. At least that creates a disadvantage to getting in through the back door.

While I'm ranting, please don't bother pointing out that it's all about money. Of course I know that. And still...

Anyway, this year I finally came up with a way of looking at this that doesn't offend my sense of logic. I have finally started viewing the baseball season (including postseason) as one huge game. The object of this huge game is to win the World Series. The rules of the game are such that there are different ways to achieve that goal. You can do it by winning your division. But you can also do it by winning a wild card spot.

I can live with that.

blair twote up a storm at twitchcon

For the second weekend in a row Blair spent her time at a "con" spreading the word about Stack-Up.Org.

Last week it was MineCon, which Sharon had wanted to go to (in her capacity as half of Team Meowsome). This weekend it was TwitchCon. She planned on going to that since she would already be in California.

I can't speak for everything Blair did, but I do know that she twote up a storm. On my Twitter account. As I mentioned once before, you can get a lot accomplished if you don't care who gets the credit. So one might naively assume I'm doing all this tweeting for Stack-Up, but it's Blair.

It also helps that she's a woman. People are more likely to go along if a middle-aged woman asks them to hold up a sticker for a picture that will make it to the internet than if a middle-aged man makes the same request.

So, thanks, Blair, for stacking TF up. I love you.

back in the saddle with fearless vampire killers

One of the things I have come to look forward to is Keith's weekly cinema history class. But, going into last Thursday's class, it had been more than a month and a half since I had attended. Between Keith's late summer hiatus, my vacation and a charity event at Andrews Air Force Base, that was just the way the halvah crumbled.

Thursday was the third session of the current sequence on horror comedies. The first two sessions were devoted to The Comedy or Terrors and Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein. For this session we saw The Fearless Vampire Killers, a Roman Polanski film about two buffoons trying to hunt vampires in the snowy mountains of Transylvania.

There's actually a lot in this movie to like. For starters, the cinematography is beautiful, In some ways it transforms what should be a claustrophobic little film into one with impressive scope. Even with the main characters hanging around in front of blue screens and matte paintings, you can practically feel the openness of the alps. The opening reminded me strongly of Tim Burton's A Nightmare Before Christmas. Great use is made of color. For one example, in the grand dance scene, the red of Sara's hair and dress contrast sharply with the muted pastels of the vampires. The music was fitting, though a couple of us thought it sounded more like spaghetti western music. And the denouement is perfect. As Joe pointed out, it was worthy of The Twilight Zone. And, along with the opening, serves as a perfect bookend.

Polanski is oddly boyish, given that he was in his 30s when this was made. And Jack MacGowran is convincing, made up as the old man. This movie also solves a pseudo-mystery from my childhood. Long ago I'd heard reference to a movie scene where a girl holds a crucifix up to a vampire, only to have him respond (in a thick Eastern European Jewish accent) that she's got the wrong vampire. I never knew what film it was in, and had long forgotten the joke. Suffice to say the mystery is solved. That, of course, speaks to another interesting thing about the film. I kept waiting for Tevye to enter. Or, during the scenes at the inn, for them to burst into a chorus of "L'chaim."

And yet I just couldn't warm up this film. The humor element was evident enough to get in the way of the storytelling, by not enough to make this legitimately a comedy. Also, I just couldn't really find myself caring about the characters. I guess it's that they were never really fleshed out. Based on the aftercomments, the rest of the guys felt the same way. But Joe did give it extra bonus points for the ending.